


white noise

by kalypsobean



Category: Collar x Malice (Visual Novel)
Genre: Accidental First Date, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 03:07:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13045218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalypsobean/pseuds/kalypsobean
Summary: Yanagi just can't focus; Hoshino has her own issues outside of the case.





	white noise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fluffybun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluffybun/gifts).



There are things Yanagi doesn't miss about being a police officer. The respect, the access... he misses those, but not the hours, or the rules. He also doesn't miss prosecutors with strange requests at all hours and threats if he didn't comply. Or testifying; he definitely doesn't miss that. 

He gets distracted, though, without a structure. It's not the kind of distraction that has him doing anything but investigating, or on some track that takes him away from the office and out until sunrise with no memory of why. His distractions are smaller than that; he has to know everything about his cases, all the details of any incidents, all the players, all the facts. He can spend hours on background checks and property histories and bank statements (not all of them obtained legally - one of those rules he doesn't miss), and lose focus on the real issue, the thing he was hired for.

Of course, nobody notices. His ability to recall and assemble detail is an asset for everyone else; delegating helps, but he still gets that itchy, almost-frantic feeling that he doesn't know everything when he's the one not looking into it.

 

Hoshino Ichika is one of those distractions. 

 

The not knowing keeps him awake, sometimes, and he doesn't care. It's another perk of leaving the force - he can sleep in the office, not change his shirt, and he doesn't get a demerit for it. (Hoshino is always put together, though; her hair is always brushed, her shirt is always clean, and she always goes home.) He's doing that a lot because of this case; the sleeping in the office, that is. There's a deadline, and there's too much he doesn't know.

 

Hoshino Ichika has the answers and cannot share them.

 

At first he thought she could have been a plant, a more present version of Okazaki, but he quickly realised she was too innocent for that much deception, and Okazaki didn't leave. (He actually tried to attach himself to her instead, but Yanagi had put an end to that when he'd caught Okazaki trying to walk Hoshino home; Hoshino was perfectly capable of defending herself, and if she did need someone, it certainly wouldn't be Okazaki, with his reckless death wish.) She holds a piece of the puzzle, but nothing fits around her, and her presence makes the case less clear. It takes time to re-evaluate every piece of evidence to now account for her, not quite a victim, not quite an actor, and that's time they don't have.

 

He'd get like this before, sometimes - before the lockdown, before her, before all this - and the only way to stop it was to get out; not just to go home to one of the same three meals and a routine seven-hour sleep before starting again, but out, away, far enough that every corner wasn't a crime scene and every person wasn't two steps removed from a witness. He went as Roppongi, sometimes, where nobody was the same as the last time he'd been there; it never slept but never changed, and the lights and the noise drowned out the case until he could sleep without dreaming about death and destruction. But nobody may leave Shinjuku, not now, and he can't sleep, and he can't stop thinking about her - how she fits, how she looks, how she smells.

He hits the wall, and there's a yelp.

"Hoshino," he says, before he even turns to the sound; everyone else is used to him, and they ignore him in turn for his tolerance.

"I can come back," she says, and she starts to leave; she'd barely made it past the door anyway, still in the stage of being wary of people knowing and how far was safe to go.

"No. Stay." She stops, but her eyes are still wide, and she's tense, far too still. "Please," he says, as if to soften the sharpness of his previous words.

"I just..." She shuffles in and sits, and he realises it's the first time they've been alone, like this, not just for a minute or with Okazaki hovering in the window (he had just checked, otherwise he couldn't be sure; Okazaki is a sneak and a good one). "I need help," she says, and then touches her shoulder, not her neck. "Not with this."

"Alright," he says, and sits opposite her. He's normally standing, herding the cats that make up his team, and he's never seen her like this; close enough to see how her eyes narrow and shift, how her chest moves under her shirt as she breathes, how close the collar sits on her skin. He's suddenly aware of how he must look to her; hair wild, shirt rumpled and stained, probably circles under his eyes.

"My brother," she says. "He's been going out, late."

"You know where?" he says.

"I think so," she says. "I followed him, but I got caught, so I'm not sure." 

"And you're worried," he says. _Of course she is,_ he says to himself. But it was the right thing to say; she nods and looks away, down. 

"What if he's involved?" she says, and of course, he hadn't thought of that. He would have, if he wasn't so unfocused; they'd known where she was, they knew her routine, and her brother was the only one who knew her outside the precinct.

He offers to go with her before it clicks that the kind of place that Hoshino would fail to blend in with is the same kind of place he'd been wishing he could go.

 

He takes her home first, makes her change out of her uniform, and he could swear she blushes even though he stays in the entryway the entire time.

"What about you?" she says, and he just shakes his head. His jacket was enough to cover his holster.

"Office worker, long day, nobody will look twice at me."

The way she looks at him implies that she doubts that, but even if he wanted to ask, there's a dull series of thumps and Hoshino has pulled him into her room, with his shoes still on. 

"He's leaving," she says, and he gets it.

"Let's go," he says, and hesitates before offering his arm. 

"What does this make me?" she says. She checks for her keys and then her shoes. Stalling, for some reason; he wonders why, or if...

"Whatever you want. Not Hoshino Ichika. No collar." Her face goes grey, just for an instant, but then he feels her hand on his forearm, small and cold.

"Whatever I want," she says, and for a moment, he believes she can make it happen.

 

He hadn't learned much about her from her apartment that he hadn't already known. Western-style, neat, and largely free of ornaments, it was utilitarian, much like his; the sofa was the brightest spot, outside of her room, as if the blankets and pillows were a step towards sanctuary, a way to insulate her from outside. Her room is an extension of that, as if it held everything she couldn't allow anyone else to see, but it hadn't told him much about her, especially after such a brief (and unintended) foray, and with his mind so scattered. There had been nothing which obviously went to saying why she had been chosen, but he couldn't shake the feeling he'd seen something he would remember as important, later. 

"It's near here," she says, the first thing she's said since they left, and followed her brother out of their building. "He goes in back."

He steers her around to the front. She resists, at first, as her brother stops outside a door and talks to someone.

"You got caught before," he says. "If we go in front, we might find out what it is without him knowing." 

She looks terrified, and touches her shoulder; it's almost to the point of being a tic, something she does when she's nervous about anything, not just the case.

"I'll stay right with you," he says, and the next time he tugs, she follows without resisting.

 

Despite everything, there's still a line. He takes the opportunity to properly observe the area; it isn't quite Kabukicho - the building is plain, as are the ones around it; the sidewalk is lined with grass, and a few trees occasionally lend them shade as they move up the line. The air, though, feels the same; it's electrified, somehow, and carries a faint scent of alcohol. The closer they get to the door, the louder the music is, though not so loud it would get reported as a disturbance.

Despite the state of Shinjuku, this place is well cared for and well run, and most notably, well hidden.

"Don't know you," the doorman says; he outclasses Yanagi in both height and weight, but Yanagi still has his badge, and his jacket is open. He pretends to look for his wallet, shifting his jacket aside just enough to reveal his badge and his holster to the doorman.

"Just looking for a good time," he says, once he has his wallet in his hands. Hoshino is playing along, still holding his arm and now leaning her head on his shoulder, as if she was simply there. It's what works in Roppongi; if he shows he's there for play, but able to assist in the event of an incident, he can get in anywhere without a booking. 

The doorman doesn't seem convinced until Yanagi reaches into the fold and starts flipping through notes. He doesn't have much, and he's recalling the prices in Shibuya when the doorman suddenly shifts, enough that Yanagi can see a black plug in his ear.

"You can go in," he says. "Get the girl a drink, looks like she needs one." And, just like that, they're in. Hoshino stays close to him as he bows and so he guides her in, a hand on her back. She blinks up at him, and when he looks down at her he realises her eyes aren't as clear as they were before they got here, even in line.

"Shoes," he says, and then he leads her to the bar, intending to sit where they would be both close to drinks and able to see the room, but partway there she tugs on his sleeve. There are tables, with chairs that seem much more comfortable than bar stools, and a couple of uniformed people moving between them - waiters. He changes course, and they get a table against the wall, just in shadow enough that someone would have to move close to recognise them.

Hoshino slides into her chair and seems to crumple, and so he pulls his chair around to be next to her instead of across from her. Now that they're inside, and still, he looks her over; it's exhaustion, kicking in at just the wrong time, if he goes by the purple now visible under her eyes and the unusual slowness in her movements. 

"Ichika?" he says, and she looks up at him. 

"I don't know why I'm so tired," she says. 

"It's alright," he says, because if he listed all the things she'd been doing, he'd have to realise that he, too, was running low on sleep. He was just more used to it than she was, coming from what was essentially a desk job with day hours. "Food will help."

And just like that, a waiter is there with two glasses, a bottle of water, and a menu. Again, his money isn't taken, as if it's somehow been passed along that they're valued guests, and Hoshino's indecision results in the waiter declaring the chef would pick for them.

 

Hoshino perks up after some water, and he relaxes, easing tension he didn't know he had for being so focused on her, and finally starts to take in the room. It's large, mostly free of seating, though apart from the tables around them, there are a few sofas, mostly along the far wall, and the stools at the bar. The music is not so loud that he can't hear over it, but it's enough to send a pleasant vibration along the floor and the wall, one that's comforting and familiar. If this was Roppongi, he could lose himself here, and come back to the case with a clear mind.

If this was Roppongi, he wouldn't notice the girl next to him except for the sequins and to gently push her away; he wouldn't be seeing the way the stray beam of light lit her hair as if illuminating her halo, and he wouldn't be putting an arm around her shoulders and inviting her to lean on him. 

 

The food comes just after he's identified the exits, six in all, including behind the bar and the way they'd entered, and just as the main lights dim to leave only the bar fully lit.

"Please enjoy," the waiter says, and then the stage lights up and the sound goes from welcomingly loud to deafening. Hoshino goes rigid, and when he looks at her, he sees she's staring at the stage.

"My brother," she says, and, sure enough, one of the people on stage bears more than a passing resemblance to Hoshino.

"Ichika," he says, "you alright?"

"Yes," she says, though he worries for her soda, gripped so tightly that he can see her hand pale in the almost-dark. 

"Then you should eat," he says. "So you can watch the whole thing."

She nods, but when the set is over he wonders if he didn't eat most of the otoushi, and the yakitori, and the tsukemono. He had watched her watching the room, and she had been inscrutable, even to him. 

She takes the last renkon chip and crushes it in the bowl, snapping it in half and in half again until it's only crumbs. 

"Why didn't he tell me?" she says, and her voice is soft, and if he didn't know her he'd think she was about to cry. 

He gets the impression that any excuse he could think of wouldn't be good enough, even though he was once a teenage boy. 

"At least he's safe," he says. Safe has a different meaning for them now, and sneaking out to play in a band at a club which is likely to be illegal is within it because it means he's not on the streets, shooting at anyone who walks past. 

"We should do this again, when it's over," she says, and then, as if she didn't mean to say that at all, "I'd like to go home now."

The waiter is there again, like magic, and leaves a note on the table in place of the empty plates.

_Just once - A._

 

He keeps it from Hoshino as he helps her up. Her tiredness hasn't quite passed, and she's shaky enough to need to lean on him without a pretense.

"What is it?" she asks.

"Just the bill," he says, and he slips 5000 yen to the doorman on their way out. "All taken care of." She nods, and settles back on his arm like they'd never separated.

 

He keeps her close as he walks her home, vaguely aware of eyes on them, far enough away to be unidentifiable, perhaps no more than curious old ladies who write everything down in case it's important one day. They don't talk, which he doesn't feel disappointed by; it's strangely pleasing, that she feels she doesn't have to fill the silence. It's fully night, and he can just see stars if he looks up, though not enough of them to identify them - Shinjuku may be in shambles, but it's still bright, still alive, and they can still protect it.

It's not long before they reach her building, taking the well-lit ways and the park instead of the alleys they'd walked to get there. She doesn't let him come up, though; he sees her to the front door of her building and there, in the light, he kisses her forehead.

"When it's over," he says, and Hoshino finally smiles.

 

He wakes up in the office, to Enomoto laughing and Sasazuka doing some strange thing with a tangled bunch of wires, and things make sense for the first time in days.


End file.
